ayumi
you belajar Japanese mcmana? you tengok anime ke belajar formally? if you've learnt only from watching anime, very impressive. can you read japanese as well?

however, i've read recently that learning japanese from anime could be misleading. contohnya: if a guy follows anime & says "mata ne" or "jaa ne", it'll make a guy sound very feminine.

i've fallen in this trap ... i've used mata ne soo many times in the past. embarrassing!!!

ps.
1. another thing is, if a guy describes himself using feminine words eg. "atashi". fortunately i havent made this mistake.

2. a radioblog with japanese songs i like is: http://mar.fra.free.fr/Radioblog/Radio/?autoplay=6

3. i credit kenakelayan for introducing me to radioblogs, basically user created internet radios.

Salaam..
I do learn most of my Japanese from anime.. but also from songs and dramas.. plus, I read the dictionary and try to understand their grammar.. and had Japanese friends.. or those who are familiar with Japanese grammars. "Mata ne" is still okay compared to "atashi"!!

ooo cool, you added a text file of your favourite songs. i was surprised at how long it is!! and laughed seeing lots of SMAP songs. actually the songs i listen to nowadays are partly influenced by your recommendations. so, thanks!

ps - to me the japanese language is at its most beautiful when in a song.

Salaam..
Mynn - The SMAP list is very long because they were the first Japanese musicians I know of (thanks to Takuya Kimura). They're not that good at singing, though :P

i have seen ur playlist..
so many collection of japanese songs..
nice
is it possible for me to collect all of it? ;p

Salaam..

Hirumi-kun - I think it's possible :)

I dont know the Japanese language nor can I appreciate anime, but yes, when it comes to Japanese songs, they are so, SO beautiful and soothing. How come I find it so difficult to appreciate Chinese songs, except for a few?

Salaam..
Pycno.. I don't know why either.. Some Mandarin songs are nice, though.. my favorite is Wang Lee Hom's "Wei Yi". It's a beautiful song. As for Japanese.. perhaps you haven't heard the darker side of the music scene.. visual kei music is very much painful to the ears most of the times :P

I had to wikipedia Visual Kei to know what it means! for sure i thought it meant something graceful, cultural and traditional turns out to be ... the exact opposite

pain to the ears indeed

what's your top 5 favourite songs in that list?

Salaam..

Well, Mynn.. to absolutely choose a Top 5 would be VERY difficult. Orange Range is my favourite J-musicians though. My top 5 favourite songs from them are:
1. Hana (translation: Flower. This was a very big hit in Japan in 2004.. and still sell very well in 2005)
2. Kizuna (translation: Bond. Another #1 on the Oricon charts)
3. *~Asterisk~ (if you're a Bleach fan, I'm sure you know that it's the first OP)
4. Love Parade
5. Onegai! Senorita (translation: Please! Senorita. More like a summer song)

I'd recommend the very influential Mr. Children (old school J-soft rock) and Utada Hikaru's music to you too (I don't know what to name her genre.. it's VERY unique.. before her "Deep River" album, she used to sing RnB) :) Angela Aki's music's really good if you like the sound of piano and Final Fantasy-like music. Ketsumeishi is like a reggae group, but they made it big with a more poppish song "Sakura". I like UVERworld too, they sang the 2nd OP of Bleach (d-TechnoLife)... well, if you'd like to take a listen to some of the songs, I'll be happy to upload 'em for you :)

my brothers, sister and i are all fans of anime and j-pop so actually im quite familiar with most of the songs on your list. i rarely share what kind of music i like with my friends ... but since you've listed your favourites i'll list mine.

(please know ive actually been on a music hiatus for around 1 year, until i discovered Reira "endless story" listed on your blog. i tried giving it a listen and now ... my music "fasting" is over!)

anyway i like most OSTs, recent favourites are (in no order):
1. Bleach OSTs esp arigatou, *asterisk and Yui's "life"
2. Beck OST -- i have the CD and i like almost all of the songs in it.
3. Kiroro - i love most of their songs especially Mirai he and sayonara daisuki na hito
4. I'm abig fan of Utada Hikaru, i really2222 love her voice. Infact i probably have all her greatest hits.
5. i like Suteki Da Ne -- both versions (one was for the final fantasy game).
6. The OSTs to Shingetsutan Tsukihime (violin), Love Hina, Basilisk Kouga Ninpou Chou, Fruit's Basket, School Rumble and Get Backers (practically most if not all of the songs are in the link to the radioblog station above).

That's just at the top of my head, if i list down all my the songs in my playlists, it'd definitely not fit your comments box:p (the collection is >20Gb in size.) recently i've also been listening to Yuna Ito (!!! alot !!!) and the piano heavy tunes of Angela Aki <- also learnt about her from you.

ps. Boku mo nihongo o benyou shite imasu yo:) sukoshi dake nihongo o wakarimasu kedo;( mada heta desu. demo moshi yokereba, nihongo de katte mo ii desu. oshiete kudasai!

Ja

(i hope my grammar was right in that sentence & notice no "Ne" after the "Ja") haha.

Hiyoshi is lost in translation.

herm..

none of my friend learnt Japanese language nor love anime -except hirumi_kun,..so honestly, i am not so exposed to Japanese culture and song and the first Japanese song i fell in love with was, 'Hana' that boomed out from my stereo whenever i opened ur page once upon a time =)..

but, i love their dramas- and my favourite is "1 litre of tears"..eventhough i watch it over and over again, still, 1 litre of tears will shed from my eyes..

mind teaching me some Japanese words?..

I personally only know one other person who is as passionate as you are about all things Japanese- my roommate Zie :) She even has her parents' numbers listed as ottosan and okaasan.. hehe.

Can't hear no song =(

Happy Birthday! Wishing you the best in everything =)

selamat hari lahir~ wiwiwiwi~ =D

i just dropping by to see if there were new updates and came across with comments wishing u birthdays!..i assume u have turn 20 on 30th may..

mind if i wishing u happy birthday too?..

Happy belated birthday..=D

otanjoubi ni omedeto!

A Happy belated birthday to my good friend Solehah @ Ayumi.
Semoga Allah panjangkan umur di dalam keberkatan, keimanan dan ilmu yang dapat dimunafaatkan. Ameen.

whoa!!visual kei's painful?hmm,i'm not really into vk,but i think bands like dir-en-grey,glay(it was an ex-vk),janne da arc, their songs isn't *that* loud.ahaha,you really don't like laruku,do you?well,lately people are more expose to the beautiful and childish side of japanese music,i.e jpop.jrock is not exactly darker,they do have beautiful lyrics,but some bands are scary,like onmyouza,who dress up like oni(ask ayumi what oni is).since jrock is old(most of the jrocker aged around 30+,like hyde,he's 37 dis year),or dress up like girls,like miyavi and malice mizer.you can say that majority of jrocker are guys,and vk rockers usually are cross-dresser.weird isn't it?

sorry sol for giving vk lecture in your blog
=p

Rean - Laruku is okay. They're not scary. And I love "Link" until now :P Glay was *kinda* scary back in their VK days. I'm not sure if JDA falls under visual-kei.. Their song 'Heaven' is definitely not one. Haha. A lot of VK bands scare me... even just looking at their pics.

Oh.. and everyone.. thanks for the b-day wish. This year, we had a lovely blueberry cheese cake for my b-day :) and we were in Malacca on the very day.

Mynn - I'm very interested to see what's in your playlist. Perhaps you could come up with a list like mine. Just Japanese songs though :)

Hiyoshi - Get a dictionary.. or try the JWWDIC site. Hehe.

Cassablancha - Haha.. If my Japanese is good, I won't mind teaching you words. But it's not, so I'm afraid I might teach you the wrong phrases.

Crimsonskye86 - Ditto. I did just that with my contact list too :)

iFos - I'm sorry you can't hear the song. Maybe I used up my bandwith. Perhaps next time you'll have more luck.

ahaha.yeah,vk is kinda scary.look at hide from X-Japan, or Gackt,back when he's still with Malice Mizer(just naming a few popular vks).but then again,you're not getting it anywhere but Japan,isn't it?good thing is,since most of them are bishies,so they're not *that* weird,compared to the glamrock scene in america and britain back in the 80's n 90's.urgh..*shiver*